Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2511.05220

Scaling behavior of dissipative systems with imaginary gap closing

Jinghui Pi, Xingli Li, Yangqian Yan

quant-phcond-mat.mes-hallphysics.opticsSubmitted Nov 7, 2025• Announced Nov 10, 2025• Revised Feb 11, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Nov 7, 2025v2 · Feb 11, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Point-gap topology, characterized by spectral winding numbers, is crucial to non-Hermitian topological phases and dramatically alters real-time dynamics. In this paper, we study the evolution of quantum particles in dissipative systems with imaginary gap closing, using the saddle-point approximation method. For trivial point-gap systems, imaginary gap-closing points can also be saddle points. This leads to a single power-law decay of the local Green's function, with the asymptotic scaling behavior determined by the order of these saddle points. In contrast, for nontrivial point-gap systems, imaginary gap-closing points do not coincide with saddle points in general. This results in a dynamical behavior characterized by two different scaling laws for distinct time regimes. In the short-time regime, the local Green's function is governed by the dominant saddle points and exhibits an asymptotic exponential decay. In the long-time regime, however, the dynamics is controlled by imaginary gap-closing points, leading to a power-law decay envelope. Our findings advance the understanding of quantum dynamics in dissipative systems and provide predictions testable in future experiments.

Journal reference
Phys. Rev. B 113, 064302 (2026)
DOI
10.1103/3ht3-ty3h
Comments
12 pages, 4 figures

Related papers

Imaginary gap-closed points and dynamics in a class of dissipative systems

Shicheng Ma, Heng Lin, Jinghui Pi

We investigate imaginary gap-closed (IGC) points and their associated dynamics in dissipative systems. In a general non-Hermitian model, we derive the equation governing the IGC points of the energy spectrum, establishing that these points are only determined by the Hermitian part of the Hamiltonian. Focusing on a class of one-dimensional dissipative chains, we explore quantum walks across different scenarios and various parameters, showing that IGC points induce a power-law decay scaling in bulk loss probability and trigger a boundary phenomenon referred to as ``edge burst.'' This observation underscores the crucial role of IGC points under periodic boundary conditions (PBCs) in shaping quantum walk dynamics. Finally, we demonstrate that the damping matrices of these dissipative chains under PBCs possess Liouvillian gapless points, implying an algebraic convergence towards the steady state in long-time dynamics.

arXiv:2403.06224•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jun 24, 2024•12 citations

Characterizing dynamical behavior in topological open systems with boundary dissipation

Zhen-Yu Zheng, Xueliang Wang, Shu Chen

We investigate the dynamics of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with boundary dissipations described by Lindblad master equations and unravel distinct dynamical features in the topologically different phases of the underlying Hamiltonian. By examining the long-time damping dynamics, we uncover a dynamical duality phenomenon between the weak and strong dissipation region, which exists only in the topologically non-trivial phase, linked to the structure of the Liouvillian spectra,particularly the stripe closest to the steady state. When dissipation is confined to a single boundary, the dynamical duality phenomenon still exists. Under this condition, the Liouvillian gap fulfills an exponential size scaling relation in the topologically non-trivial phase and a power-law size scaling relation in the topologically trivial phase. Within the topologically non-trivial region, we identify the existence of boundary-localized dark states in the thermodynamical limit, which is responsible for the exponential size decay of Liouvillian gap.

arXiv:2503.00363•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•May 30, 2025•1 citation

Power-law tails and non-Markovian dynamics in open quantum systems: An exact solution from Keldysh field theory

Ahana Chakraborty, Rajdeep Sensarma

The Born-Markov approximation is widely used to study the dynamics of open quantum systems coupled to external baths. Using Keldysh formalism, we show that the dynamics of a system of bosons (fermions) linearly coupled to a noninteracting bosonic (fermionic) bath falls outside this paradigm if the bath spectral function has nonanalyticities as a function of frequency. In this case, we show that the dissipative and noise kernels governing the dynamics have distinct power-law tails. The Green's functions show a short-time ``quasi''-Markovian exponential decay before crossing over to a power-law tail governed by the nonanalyticity of the spectral function. We study a system of bosons (fermions) hopping on a one-dimensional lattice, where each site is coupled linearly to an independent bath of noninteracting bosons (fermions). We obtain exact expressions for the Green's functions of this system, which show power-law decay $\ensuremath{\sim}|t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$. We use these to calculate the density and current profile, as well as unequal-time current-current correlators. While the density and current profiles show interesting quantitative deviations from Markovian results, the current-current correlators show qualitatively distinct long-time power-law tails $|t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ characteristic of non-Markovian dynamics. We show that the power-law decays survive in the presence of interparticle interaction in the system, but the crossover time scale is shifted to larger values with increasing interaction strength.

arXiv:1709.04472•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Mar 16, 2018•27 citations

Dissipative Floquet dynamical quantum phase transition

J. Naji, Masoud Jafari, Rouhollah Jafari +1 more

Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians provide a simple picture for inspecting dissipative systems with natural or induced gain and loss. We investigate the Floquet dynamical phase transition in the dissipative periodically time-driven XY and extended XY models, where the imaginary terms represent the physical gain and loss during the interacting processes with the environment. The time-independent effective Floquet non-Hermitian Hamiltonians disclose three regions by analyzing the non-Hermitian gap: pure real gap (real eigenvalues), pure imaginary gap, and complex gap. We show that each region of the system can be distinguished by the complex geometrical nonadiabatic phase. We have discovered that in the presence of dissipation, the Floquet dynamical phase transitions (FDPTs) still exist in the region where the time-independent effective Floquet non-Hermitian Hamiltonians reveal real eigenvalues. Opposed to expectations based on earlier works on quenched systems, our findings show that the existence of the non-Hermitian topological phase is not an essential condition for dissipative FDPTs (DFDPTs). We also demonstrate the range of driven frequency, over which the DFDPTs occur, narrows down by increasing the dissipation coupling and shrinks to a single point at the critical value of dissipation. Moreover, quantization and jumps of the dynamical geometric phase reveals the topological characteristic feature of DFDPTs in the real gap region where confined to exceptional points.

arXiv:2111.06131•Physical Review A•Feb 28, 2022•44 citations

Topological Protection of Coherence in a Dissipative Environment

Zhengzhi Ma, Lorenzo Campos Venuti, Stephan Haas +1 more

One dimensional topological insulators are characterized by edge states with exponentially small energies. According to one generalization of topological phase to non-Hermitian systems, a finite system in a non-trivial topological phase displays surface states with exponentially long life times. In this work we explore the possibility of exploiting such non-Hermitian topological phases to enhance the quantum coherence of a fiducial qubit embedded in a dissipative environment. We first show that a network of qubits interacting with lossy cavities can be represented, in a suitable super-one-particle sector, by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian of the desired form. We then study, both analytically and numerically, one-dimensional geometries with up to three sites per unit cell, and up to a topological winding number $W$ = 2. For finite-size systems the number of edge modes is a complicated function of $W$ and the system size $N$. However we find that there are precisely $W$ modes localized at one end of the chain. In such topological phases the quibt's coherence lifetime is exponentially large in the system size. We verify that, for $W$ > 1, at large times, the Lindbladian evolution is approximately a non-trivial unitary. For $W$ = 2 this results in Rabi-like oscillations of the qubit's coherence measure.

Bulletin of the American Physical Society•Mar 6, 2018•0 citations

Topological protection of coherence in a dissipative environment

Lorenzo Campos Venuti, Zhengzhi Ma, Hubert Saleur +1 more

One-dimensional topological insulators are characterized by edge states with exponentially small energies. According to one generalization of topological phase to non-Hermitian systems, a finite system in a nontrivial topological phase displays surface states with exponentially long lifetimes. In this work we explore the possibility of exploiting such non-Hermitian topological phases to enhance the quantum coherence of a fiducial qubit embedded in a dissipative environment. We first show that a network of qubits interacting with lossy cavities can be represented, in a suitable super-one-particle sector, by a non-Hermitian ``Hamiltonian'' of the desired form. We then study, both analytically and numerically, one-dimensional geometries with up to three sites per unit cell and up to a topological winding number $W=2$. For finite-size systems the number of edge modes is a complicated function of $W$ and the system size $N$. However, we find that there are precisely $W$ modes localized at one end of the chain. In such topological phases the qubit's coherence lifetime is exponentially large in the system size. We verify that for $W>1$, at large times, the Lindbladian evolution is approximately a nontrivial unitary. For $W=2$ this results in Rabi-like oscillations of the qubit's coherence measure.

arXiv:1703.03075•Physical Review A•Nov 27, 2017•24 citations
Point-gap topology, characterized by spectral winding numbers, is crucial to non-Hermitian topological phases and dramatically alters real-time dynamics. In this paper, we study the evolution of quantum particles in dissipative systems with imaginary gap closing, using the saddle-point approximation method. For trivial point-gap systems, imaginary gap-closing points can also be saddle points. This leads to a single power-law decay of the local Green's function, with the asymptotic scaling behavior determined by the order of these saddle points. In contrast, for nontrivial point-gap systems, imaginary gap-closing points do not coincide with saddle points in general. This results in a dynamical behavior characterized by two different scaling laws for distinct time regimes. In the short-time regime, the local Green's function is governed by the dominant saddle points and exhibits an asymptotic exponential decay. In the long-time regime, however, the dynamics is controlled by imaginary gap-closing points, leading to a power-law decay envelope. Our findings advance the understanding of quantum dynamics in dissipative systems and provide predictions testable in future experiments.
We investigate imaginary gap-closed (IGC) points and their associated dynamics in dissipative systems. In a general non-Hermitian model, we derive the equation governing the IGC points of the energy spectrum, establishing that these points are only determined by the Hermitian part of the Hamiltonian. Focusing on a class of one-dimensional dissipative chains, we explore quantum walks across different scenarios and various parameters, showing that IGC points induce a power-law decay scaling in bulk loss probability and trigger a boundary phenomenon referred to as ``edge burst.'' This observation underscores the crucial role of IGC points under periodic boundary conditions (PBCs) in shaping quantum walk dynamics. Finally, we demonstrate that the damping matrices of these dissipative chains under PBCs possess Liouvillian gapless points, implying an algebraic convergence towards the steady state in long-time dynamics.
We investigate the dynamics of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with boundary dissipations described by Lindblad master equations and unravel distinct dynamical features in the topologically different phases of the underlying Hamiltonian. By examining the long-time damping dynamics, we uncover a dynamical duality phenomenon between the weak and strong dissipation region, which exists only in the topologically non-trivial phase, linked to the structure of the Liouvillian spectra,particularly the stripe closest to the steady state. When dissipation is confined to a single boundary, the dynamical duality phenomenon still exists. Under this condition, the Liouvillian gap fulfills an exponential size scaling relation in the topologically non-trivial phase and a power-law size scaling relation in the topologically trivial phase. Within the topologically non-trivial region, we identify the existence of boundary-localized dark states in the thermodynamical limit, which is responsible for the exponential size decay of Liouvillian gap.
The Born-Markov approximation is widely used to study the dynamics of open quantum systems coupled to external baths. Using Keldysh formalism, we show that the dynamics of a system of bosons (fermions) linearly coupled to a noninteracting bosonic (fermionic) bath falls outside this paradigm if the bath spectral function has nonanalyticities as a function of frequency. In this case, we show that the dissipative and noise kernels governing the dynamics have distinct power-law tails. The Green's functions show a short-time ``quasi''-Markovian exponential decay before crossing over to a power-law tail governed by the nonanalyticity of the spectral function. We study a system of bosons (fermions) hopping on a one-dimensional lattice, where each site is coupled linearly to an independent bath of noninteracting bosons (fermions). We obtain exact expressions for the Green's functions of this system, which show power-law decay $\ensuremath{\sim}|t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$. We use these to calculate the density and current profile, as well as unequal-time current-current correlators. While the density and current profiles show interesting quantitative deviations from Markovian results, the current-current correlators show qualitatively distinct long-time power-law tails $|t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ characteristic of non-Markovian dynamics. We show that the power-law decays survive in the presence of interparticle interaction in the system, but the crossover time scale is shifted to larger values with increasing interaction strength.
Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians provide a simple picture for inspecting dissipative systems with natural or induced gain and loss. We investigate the Floquet dynamical phase transition in the dissipative periodically time-driven XY and extended XY models, where the imaginary terms represent the physical gain and loss during the interacting processes with the environment. The time-independent effective Floquet non-Hermitian Hamiltonians disclose three regions by analyzing the non-Hermitian gap: pure real gap (real eigenvalues), pure imaginary gap, and complex gap. We show that each region of the system can be distinguished by the complex geometrical nonadiabatic phase. We have discovered that in the presence of dissipation, the Floquet dynamical phase transitions (FDPTs) still exist in the region where the time-independent effective Floquet non-Hermitian Hamiltonians reveal real eigenvalues. Opposed to expectations based on earlier works on quenched systems, our findings show that the existence of the non-Hermitian topological phase is not an essential condition for dissipative FDPTs (DFDPTs). We also demonstrate the range of driven frequency, over which the DFDPTs occur, narrows down by increasing the dissipation coupling and shrinks to a single point at the critical value of dissipation. Moreover, quantization and jumps of the dynamical geometric phase reveals the topological characteristic feature of DFDPTs in the real gap region where confined to exceptional points.
One dimensional topological insulators are characterized by edge states with exponentially small energies. According to one generalization of topological phase to non-Hermitian systems, a finite system in a non-trivial topological phase displays surface states with exponentially long life times. In this work we explore the possibility of exploiting such non-Hermitian topological phases to enhance the quantum coherence of a fiducial qubit embedded in a dissipative environment. We first show that a network of qubits interacting with lossy cavities can be represented, in a suitable super-one-particle sector, by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian of the desired form. We then study, both analytically and numerically, one-dimensional geometries with up to three sites per unit cell, and up to a topological winding number WWW = 2. For finite-size systems the number of edge modes is a complicated function of WWW and the system size NNN. However we find that there are precisely WWW modes localized at one end of the chain. In such topological phases the quibt's coherence lifetime is exponentially large in the system size. We verify that, for WWW > 1, at large times, the Lindbladian evolution is approximately a non-trivial unitary. For WWW = 2 this results in Rabi-like oscillations of the qubit's coherence measure.
One-dimensional topological insulators are characterized by edge states with exponentially small energies. According to one generalization of topological phase to non-Hermitian systems, a finite system in a nontrivial topological phase displays surface states with exponentially long lifetimes. In this work we explore the possibility of exploiting such non-Hermitian topological phases to enhance the quantum coherence of a fiducial qubit embedded in a dissipative environment. We first show that a network of qubits interacting with lossy cavities can be represented, in a suitable super-one-particle sector, by a non-Hermitian ``Hamiltonian'' of the desired form. We then study, both analytically and numerically, one-dimensional geometries with up to three sites per unit cell and up to a topological winding number W=2W=2W=2. For finite-size systems the number of edge modes is a complicated function of WWW and the system size NNN. However, we find that there are precisely WWW modes localized at one end of the chain. In such topological phases the qubit's coherence lifetime is exponentially large in the system size. We verify that for W>1W>1W>1, at large times, the Lindbladian evolution is approximately a nontrivial unitary. For W=2W=2W=2 this results in Rabi-like oscillations of the qubit's coherence measure.